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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
December 17, 2011
"Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive."
The older I get, the more I see the truth in humourist Stephen Fry's words. Which is why, for some years now, I have endeavoured to make the Early Music Society of the Islands' Christmas Concert part of our seasonal tradition: this is one event where the hopeful traveller is, in my experience, guaranteed a happy arrival.
This year's offering was no exception: the weather may have been inclement, the world currently in Year Four of the Great Economic Downturn, but inside the Alix Goolden Hall, all was sweetness and light.
The Aulos Ensemble opened the evening with, it was admitted quite openly, music which had no seasonal connection whatsoever: a concerto by Antonio "Mr Concerto" Vivaldi. RV94 in D is hardly one of the Red Priest's greatest hits, but its airy lightness - both the music and the playing - was the perfect hors d'oeuvre for the evening's main courses.
There followed a group of four traditional German Christmas Carols, which began dramatically with Nancy Argenta's voice floating into the hall from backstage.
Although, to these decidedly non-Germanic ears, all four carols were decidedly cut from the same cloth (whose pattern also bore a distinct similarity to the chorales used by Bach in his Passions), the combination of Argenta's stunningly lovely voice and the tasteful accompaniment, prevented any sense of ennui.
The Concerto Pastorale, by Alessandro Scarlatti, was a joy, from its bouncy overture (with alternating 4/4 and 3/4 sections) to the lovely 6/8 finale, with bucolic drone effects courtesy of Myron Lutzke's cello.
The second half began with a group of four English carols - and here, of course, the music resonated right back to my earliest memories of Christmas. The arrangements were marvellous and the performances - well, if I live long enough to hear better, more moving, performances of "The Holly and the Ivy", the Sussex Carol, the Coventry Carol or "In Dulci Jubilo" I shall be very surprised.
Incidentally, with regard to the last-named, I was a trifle surprised that only the first verse was sung in its macaronic form, as a mixture of Latin and English, but not in the least surprised not to hear Bach's fabulous harmonisation of the final ("Ubi sunt gaudia") verse. Memo to local choirs: check this out.
Michel Corrette may have been born less than a quarter of a century after Bach, Handel and Scarlatti (Domenico), but he survived long enough to outlive Mozart by some four years.
At first, I admit, his Quatrième Symphonie de Noëls struck me as a tad faceless, a sort of Baroque-by-numbers; but as it progressed, its changing metres, interesting harmonies and wonderful series of false endings (I love a false ending) quite changed my mind. Of course the excellent playing helped.
Coming from the pen of almost any other composer, one would say that "Flösst mein Heiland" (from Bach's Christmas Oratorio) relied on the "echo" imitation for its effect.
Of course, coming from the great Johann Sebastien, the echo is mere (actually, nothing about Bach is "mere") icing on the cake - but what delicious icing!
Indeed, so total was the dynamic control of oboist Marc Schchman that, had I not been able to see him quite clearly playing, I could easily have believed that his "echo" of his own playing was in fact another oboist.
The soprano, on the other hand, has a genuine "echo", in the form of another, offstage, singer. In this case it was the unfortunately (from where I was sitting) invisible Rebecca Genge.
Invisible, but far from inaudible - and Genge (who, I imagine, is probably one of Argenta's students) sang quite beautifully.
The final purely instrumental piece was the second movement affetuoso from Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, played by Linda Quan, Christopher Krueger and Artur Haas. It was, simply, sublime.
It has been a number of years since I last heard Argenta sing; the voice has lost something of its silvery quality, but this has been replaced by a rich, creamy tone which, in my opinion, more than compensates.
Moreover, it was clear from the last piece, the vocally-spectacular "Alleluia" from Handel's Silete Venti, that Argenta still has the same extraordinary control of her instrument.
We had an encore in the shape of a spirited rendition of the Gloucester Wassail. At one point Argenta seemed to stumble over the words and there was a brief hiatus while cellist Lutzke maintained a drone and she assured that audience that she had not been drinking.
As an informal touch to close the evening with a smile it could hardly have been bettered had it been planned - and I am sure that it was not.
Undoubtedly one of my Christmas musical highlights.
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